


In Which There is a Lot of Water

by bobblemonkey2



Category: Howl Series - Diana Wynne Jones, Howl no Ugoku Shiro | Howl's Moving Castle, Howl's Moving Castle - All Media Types
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Humor, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-21
Updated: 2020-06-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:40:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24845449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bobblemonkey2/pseuds/bobblemonkey2
Summary: Michael accidentally floods the castle with a spell gone wrong, and Sophie is not happy. She also finds a way to blame Howl too.
Relationships: Calcifer & Sophie Hatter & Howl Pendragon, Lettie Hatter & Martha Hatter & Sophie Hatter, Lettie Hatter & Sophie Hatter, Lettie Hatter/Ben Sullivan | Wizard Suliman, Michael Fisher & Sophie Hatter, Michael Fisher/Martha Hatter, Sophie Hatter & Howl Pendragon
Comments: 2
Kudos: 52





	In Which There is a Lot of Water

**Author's Note:**

> Lil one shot that takes place between book one and two.   
> All characters belong to Diana Wynne Jones.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

The slight dripping sound concerned Sophie a little as she made breakfast.

‘Calcifer, is it starting to rain?’ She asked the fire demon, who was resting in his fireplace as he did most days since his contract with Howl had been broken.

‘You want me to get up from this comfortable position and check?’ He whined, rolling his fiery eyes as he did so.

‘If you would be so kind,’ she said as she got back to preparing breakfast. 

‘Fire demons aren’t known for their kindness - but since you asked so nicely.’ With a quick poof he was up and out of the chimney, his head in the clouds as he searched for any semblance of rain, but to no avail. ‘No rain out there,’ he said as he entered the castle, making himself at home in the fireplace once again. 

‘Hmm,’ Sophie wondered aloud as the dripping continued. Her thoughts would have immediately gone to Howl if he wasn’t already sitting at the table behind her, his nose in the sports page of a Welsh newspaper.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

‘Where’s Michael?’ She asked.

‘In the bathroom,’ Howl replied, too enveloped in the rugby scores to hear the urgency in his wife’s voice. 

‘Oh no!’ She said aloud. Within seconds breakfast had been abandoned and Sophie had flung herself upstairs with as much speed as she could muster at this time in the morning. ‘Michael!’ She banged on the bathroom door. No answer. With a tentative twist of the knob, the door swung open, and with it came a tidal wave.

‘Howl!’ She cried, spluttering water as she did so. Michael and his blasted spells gone wrong! When I get my hands on that boy, she thought.

In the bathroom was a rather soggy apprentice, bobbing up and down atop a wave. Periodically, he dove under to fetch some equally soggy bits of paper. How he had got this much water into the castle she did not know.

‘Michael Fisher what have you done!’ She shouted. A full name meant the person on the receiving end was about to feel the full wrath of Sophie, everyone in the castle knew this.

‘I’m sorry, Sophie! I was trying out this spell Master Howl gave me, I guess I got it wrong.’ He apologised, still bobbing up and down. Wrong was an understatement, and it seemed more water was coming.

‘My hair!’ Howl wailed as he came up the stairs in a sort of doggy paddle.

‘Shut up about your hair for once, Howl, and sort this mess out.’ Sophie demanded.

‘Technically it’s not my mess to sort out, Mrs Witch.’ He protested.

‘You gave Michael the spell that did this! You should have been keeping an eye on him not reading that stupid newspaper!’ Sophie’s own red hair was now clinging to her face and neck as the water continued to rise, coming seemingly out of nowhere.

‘He needs to learn to be independent somehow,’ Howl huffed, more focussed on slithering out of fixing the situation than the rising water.

‘And this is what you had in mind for him to do that? Flooding the entire castle!’ 

‘It’s a learning curve.’ Howl smirked - how he could find this funny Sophie did not know, especially when his beauty potions were floating all over the bathroom. ‘Come on, Michael, fix it.’ He egged the apprentice on.

Still looking at the soggy papers, Michael began saying a few words in sorcery, but to no avail as the water only seemed to rise. Sophie was really furious now.

‘Think, Michael, think!’ Howl shouted over the water sounds. Still the apprentice made no headway.

‘That’s enough!’ Sophie screamed all of a sudden, prompting both Howl and Michael to turn to her in shock. ‘Water, get out of the castle now and go make yourself useful elsewhere!’ With that, the water began to drain.

Outside, there was a loud crack of thunder and the clouds opened to reveal a downpour of rain.

‘My dear, you’ve changed the weather.’ Howl said, impressed.

‘Argh!’ Sophie exclaimed as she stormed off to assess the water damage downstairs, leaving little puddles as she went. Soggy papers and books were strewn all over the place, most likely ruined, and the furniture was dripping wet. Calcifer was nowhere to be seen, which must have meant he fled before the flood, though since it was raining he would likely soon be back - unless he had truly had enough of the chaos in the moving castle this time. Likewise, the kitchen was soaked, and the food Sophie had bought earlier in the market was now rolling around on the floor, inedible. ‘Michael! Howl! Get down here!’ She went red with anger.

The two boys skulked down the stairs moments later, though they had clearly fought about who was to emerge first, and therefore, who Sophie’s rage would be mostly directed at. Howl had chosen the short straw.

‘You stupid wizards! Look at the mess you’ve made! Everything’s ruined and Calcifer’s gone - he could even be dead for all we know with all this water!’ 

‘I’m sorry Sophie, I’m so so sorry,’ Michael pleaded, looking around at the damage.

‘And you?’ She pointed an accusing finger at her husband. ‘You’re the cause of all this!’ 

‘If you remember rightly, my dear, I was downstairs having breakfast when said spell was cast,’ he looked for his discarded piece of toast, which was now a soggy slice of bread under the table. ‘Look, there’s the evidence.’ He smirked, much to Sophie’s contempt.

‘Don’t try and slither out of this you slitherer-outer,’ she stomped up to her husband so their faces were now inches apart, both still dripping wet. ‘You know as well as I do that Michael can’t be trusted with spells of this magnitude! You should have been keeping an eye on him, not tucking into your breakfast and reading those stupid rugby scores!’ Her face had now passed from it’s usual shade of angry red to an even more rage-filled scarlet. Howl worried that she might faint on account of all this stress.

‘Calm down, cariad, the damage isn’t that bad,’ he replied, slightly regretfully as he inspected the state of the room in more detail to find the entire contents of his workbench floating in a puddle on the floor. ‘Well, it’s quite bad but we’ll fix it.’ He assured her.

‘I hope that ‘we’ doesn’t include me,’ she said, her face beginning to return to its normal colour again. 

‘Of course not, cariad. Why don’t you go and visit Lettie or Martha for a bit, while  
Michael and I clean this up?’ Howl had a way of soothing her when she was in this state, an ability which Michael could only dream of - he daren’t think what would have happened if Howl hadn’t been here.

‘Hmmph,’ Sophie thought - she hadn’t seen her sisters in what felt like forever, and Martha took the weekends off Cesari’s so she’d surely be free for tea at Lettie and Ben’s. ‘Okay. But this castle better by spick and span when I get back!’ She shot an accusing look at both of them before turning to leave. As she turned the doorknob to Market Chipping she realised she was still soaked. ‘Urgh! Clothes you better dry yourself this instant or so help me-‘, they dried before she could finish, probably too afraid to hear the rest of the sentence. ‘Much better,’ she sighed as the door swung open onto a very rainy - courtesy of her - town square.

———

‘The weather is ghastly today, quick come in out of that rain so you can dry off,’ Lettie ushered her sisters into the house she shared with Ben.

‘Ah yes, that was sort of my fault,’ Sophie chuckled.

‘You’ve been practising weather spells? That’s very advanced!’ Lettie exclaimed in surprise, and perhaps with a little envy, as she took their damp coats.

‘Not exactly - Michael flooded the castle so I told the water to make itself useful, and I guess this is what happened.’ 

‘Oh Michael!’ Martha sighed rolling her eyes. ‘I love him but that boy is one of the worst wizards I’ve ever seen.’

The girls laughed in unison as they made their way to the front room, where a rather cosy looking fire demon was dozing in the fireplace.

‘Calcifer?’ Sophie said, receiving no reply as he was clearly in too deep a sleep to notice her presence.

‘Oh yes, he turned up earlier and just sort of fell asleep with no explanation. I guess that was on account of the flood too.’ 

Sophie was relieved to see Calcifer hadn’t been put out by the water, and she chastened herself for thinking the worst - he had always been fond of Lettie and Ben’s fireplace, so of course he was here all along.

‘Sit down ladies while I get some tea and cake!’ Lettie said excitedly before running off to the kitchen.

The morning passed in a blur of gossip and general chatter about apprenticeships, silly husbands, and all things in between. Martha confided that she planned to marry Michael before the end of the year, so that they could start their family as soon as possible, and Lettie told her sisters of the many scorned ex-suitors who had turned up at her door trying to win her back since marrying Ben. Before long the rain seemed to have stopped, which Sophie took as a sign that the castle was back to its normal state.

‘I’d better get back,’ she announced with a bite of lemon cake in her mouth. ‘Calcifer! Wake up!’ She shouted to the fireplace.

‘Alright, alright...’ he mumbled, still half asleep. ‘Oh, hey Sophie, when did you get here?’ 

‘A little after you - come on, I think the castle is dry now.’

She hugged her sisters goodbye before she made her way through Market Chipping, Calcifer bobbing above her shoulder.

———

‘Welcome home!’ Michael exclaimed as Sophie walked through the door. Much to her surprise, the castle looked in a better state than ever, and it seemed the boys had been back to the market to replace the spoiled food from earlier.

‘Well, it’s dry at least,’ she replied, not wanting to give them the satisfaction of knowing they’d exceeded her expectations.

‘I learnt a trick or two from this old cleaner I used to have - she may have always stuck her nose where it wasn’t wanted, but she at least had a knack for the job.’ Howl winked, though Sophie was rather unimpressed.

‘I’m so so sorry, Sophie, I really truly am! I never meant for the spell to go this wrong!’ Michael seemed on the verge of tears - though Sophie was just a few years older than him, she still scared him as she’d done when she was a 90 year old woman.

‘It’s okay, Michael. I know you didn’t mean it.’ She placed her arm around him and gave him a gentle squeeze. ‘Plus, Howl  
shouldn’t have left you alone with such a powerful spell in the first place - what were you even trying to do?’

Michael wiped a tear from his cheek. ‘Bend water,’ he mumbled. 

‘Maybe we’ll leave the water bending until you’ve mastered the basics,’ Howl interjected.

‘I think that’s wise,’ huffed Sophie.

‘Why is no one apologising to me? I’m the one who was nearly killed! Jeez!’ Calcifer said from the fireplace, where he had made himself comfortable. Michael went over to profusely apologise on his hands and knees, which satisfied the fire demon completely.

Howl made his way to his wife’s side. ‘I make a pretty good cleaner, don’t I?’ He smirked. Sophie knew full well he had used copious amounts of magic to clean up the mess, but she had to give credit where it was due.

‘Maybe you’ve found your true calling - you were never a very good wizard anyway.’ She chuckled, which prompted a poke in the side from Howl. 

‘Come on, Mrs Nose, let’s get warm by the fire. I’m pretty sure all this water has given me a cold.’


End file.
